Meat Loaf Explains His Most Misunderstood Lyric

Largely due to his long-standing association with songwriter and producer Jim Steinman, whose lengthy epics helped define his style, Meat Loaf deals with a lot more lyrics than your average rock star. Still, when it came time to discuss the most widely misunderstood line of his career, Loaf knew exactly what to talk about.

Speaking with host Ali Wentworth for the Yahoo! talk show embedded above, Meat was asked to clear up the long-standing confusion surrounding his 1993 comeback hit 'I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That),' released as the leadoff single from the 'Bat Out of Hell II' album. "Jim Steinman, who I worked with and had great success with, wrote the song," he recalled. "When we were recording it, Jim brings up the thing -- he says, 'People aren't gonna know what that is.' I said, 'Of course they are. How can they not know?' He goes, 'They're not gonna.'"

So what is "that"? "It's the line before every chorus," explained Loaf. "There's nine of them, I think. The problem lies because Jimmy likes to write, so you forget what the line was before you get to 'I won't do that.'" (Some of the things the song says he won't do: forget the way you feel right now; forgive himself if you don't go all the way tonight; do it better than he does it with you, so long; and stop dreaming of you every night of his life.)

Of course, this isn't the first time 'Anything for Love' has been explained -- Meat did it with a blackboard and a pointer during his 'VH1 Storytellers' performance of the song -- but Wentworth pressed for a few more examples of things he might or might not do for love, including going vegan, recording a song with Justin Bieber, or taking a bullet.

One thing he probably wouldn't do? Give up P.F. Chang's lettuce wraps, which he revealed are his post-gig treat of choice. You can watch the whole segment above.